The Rapids on Sunday moved to 0-2 with a home-opening loss to the Philadelphia Union in Commerce City. But if there’s a bright spot to Colorado’s season so far it’s the play of striker Deshorn Brown and Dillon Powers, both rookie draft picks.

Colorado’s roster this season is significantly younger, after the departures of Conor Casey, Omar Cummings, Jeff Larentowicz, Hunter Freeman and Luis Zapata.

All of the offseason changes, almost all of them, made the roster markedly younger.

We were the second-oldest squad in the league last year, out of 19 teams. I think, like a lot of teams in professional sports, there comes a time. You know, I’m a 49ers fan. And Steve Young is on the bench. And they trade him to Kansas City. It’s like, ‘Blasphemy. What are you doing.’ But that’s our industry. At some point, players move on. Whether they chose to, whether time or age, whatever the reason.

We were at a position where, when Paul and Gary (Smith) put together that squad — and people forget, it was Paul who went and got Larentowicz and Wells and Pickens and Drew and Brian Mullan, that was Paul Bravo. So when they did that, they went for all-or-nothing. Last team in, they went brought in veterans. And it worked. That’s fantastic. But that was at the cost of zero draft picks, zero for several years, and allocations.

So we’ve been working hard to rebuild that cupboard of assets. That’s a big part of this. At some point, you have to say goodbye to some of your heroes. And then some heroes can stick around. Brian Mullan is a great example. Jaime Smith is a great example. Guys who wanted to be club guys, and were willing to understand where they fit in as a role. That they put the club first, that they want to live in Colorado. That they want to be a part of helping the young transition. And that’s awesome to have that veteran presence in our club. Matt Pickens is still there, Marv wanted to come back for less to be here. It’s a give-and-take on both sides I think.

It was evidenced who wanted to be part of this transition in the future and which guys didn’t want to. And by the way, that doesn’t make them bad or wrong. It’s just finding amicable ways both parties can reach. And that’s one of Paul’s strengths as an ex-player, that’s where that comes from, how he wants to be treated.

There are some clubs in the league that will replace veterans with veterans, usually at a higher cost. So you’re not just rebuilding temporarily? This youth movement is something longer term?

So I would use left back as an example. Every club in the world is looking for a left back. So right now, our left back roster, in terms of age, not depth, would be: Anthony Wallace, 23 going on 24; Chris Klute, 22 going on 23; and Kory Kindle, 21 going on 22. So we have competition. And below that, we have a youth player on our Under-18s we think will be a future left back player. So all of a sudden, you can see the cycle of that.

In a perfect world, I would suggest and prefer that we would have maybe a 26- or 27-year-old that is the first on that list, then you have the progression of depth.

The other way you have to look at it is, now we have assets in their early 20s who can play left back. So we have other opportunities like today, when we say, gosh, we have players for depth and what can we do with it? You have to think like that at every position. And that’s the transition we’re making…

So it’s not just about youth. It’s about depth and talent at each position. And having a plan to either leverage those assets to help other positions in need or to continue to grow in those areas to get the best talent in those areas.

That’s why Edson was our first move. We needed a veteran — and it cost us some money; he’s less than Conor but he’s still a well-paid player in our league — but underneath that now, we’ve acquired two 20-something year-olds with talent who can be understudies and assets. I don’t think that’s disrespectful. That’s how our sport is, these are assests. We buy and sell assets. Our league trades assets.